23 Dead, 9 Injured... Largest Casualty Incident Since Serious Accident Punishment Act Enactment
Suwon District Prosecutors' Office: "Disaster Caused by Risk Outsourcing and Neglect of Human Life"
On the 24th, Park Soon-gwan, CEO of Arisel, and Park Jung-eon, General Director of Arisel, who are father and son, were arrested and indicted in connection with the ‘Hwaseong Arisel Explosion Fire’ incident that resulted in the deaths of 23 workers.
On the same day, the dedicated investigation team of Suwon District Prosecutors' Office (led by Deputy Chief Prosecutor Ahn Byung-soo) arrested and indicted CEO Park on charges including violation of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, and General Director Park on charges including violation of the Industrial Safety and Health Act. Additionally, six related personnel including company executives responsible for the accident and four corporations were indicted without detention.
The prosecution applied charges against CEO Park for violating safety and health obligations such as failure to inspect hazardous and dangerous factors, and against General Director Park and others for violating safety measures in battery storage and management.
The prosecution also applied charges of violating the Dispatch Act, viewing that CEO Park and General Director Park received 320 dispatched workers from an unlicensed sales company and concealed the occurrence of industrial accidents related to workers’ finger amputation accidents.
Regarding General Director Park, charges were also applied for obstructing quality inspection work by swapping batteries submitted for quality inspection by the Defense Technology Quality Institute to hide defects in batteries supplied to the Ministry of National Defense, as well as for obstruction of business and violation of the Building Act by arbitrarily dismantling walls for fire zones without permission from the competent authorities.
The prosecution stated, “This incident is the worst disaster caused by a management approach that prioritized profit over workers’ lives and safety, extreme safety insensitivity that neglected risks despite multiple accident signs and failed to establish a safety management system, and overlapping behaviors of outsourcing risks through illegal dispatch and disregard for human life.”
On the morning of June 24, a large-scale disaster occurred at Arisel in Jeongok Marine Industrial Complex, Seosin-myeon, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi Province, due to a lithium battery explosion, resulting in 23 deaths and 9 injuries. This is the largest casualty since the enforcement of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act.
The prosecution formed a dedicated investigation team on the day of the accident and, through cooperative investigations with the Gyeonggi Southern Provincial Police Agency and the Gyeonggi Branch of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, uncovered the cause of the fire.
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